If you ask anyone for a list of good colleges or universities, you can predict what will be on their list. Most lists include colleges featuring in the popular top-ranking systems used in various regions and most of these colleges will have extremely low acceptance rates, less than 10%, some even less than 5%, that is, these institutions reject most students that apply to them. At the same time, there are colleges that accept most people who apply to them. Recently I heard a TED talk by Cecilia M. Orphan, that was about what makes a good college. She made a very excellent point that got me thinking, why colleges reject most of the students who apply to them are considered good colleges, and colleges that accept most of the students, give the opportunity to students to get a college education that none of these so-called good colleges offer, are not included in the list of good colleges of many people. She rightly flags our skewed perception. The perception we all have developed through relentless advertising and deeply flawed college ranking systems.
Why do we think that colleges that only select top-ranked students, the students that can go anywhere and excel or students who have resources and privilege to attend any college are considered good colleges; but colleges that give opportunities to all students that may not get an opportunity to attend a college or get a college degree unless admitted to that state or regional state university are not in the list of good colleges? Honestly, in the US, I fell in love with every educational institute I visited, the infrastructure and campus just blew me away, since then I had a dream to attend a US educational institution as a student and I fulfilled that dream when I attended UConn Law School for the JD program. Celilia's talk raises another great point about already super-rich institutions getting more grants and growing their endowments in the billions of dollars, whereas other colleges provide educational opportunities to many more deserving students struggling to balance their budgets. Most donations and grants flow to institutions that already have enough money to support their programs, this inequality gets worse over time and the result is rich colleges getting richer whereas colleges with less money keep on struggling for funds. Both, raise tuition, but the tuition raised by colleges that need funds to balance their budgets affects more students and creates a bigger uproar compared to tuition raised by rich colleges.
The point of this post is not to say that colleges that consistently feature on top in various college ranking systems are not good. They are good institutions and there are good reasons why they score high in most ranking systems, but many more colleges are doing a much more difficult job and serving a much wider student community that needs the same amount of recognition and support. Craving for a luxury brand is not a bad thing. Even in education, there are luxury brands, and parents and students do crave these brands and are willing to do whatever it takes to get into these branded institutions. However, there are many other brands that are more inclusive and diverse that need to be recognized for what they do best, which is to provide educational opportunities to many underprivileged and struggling students who may have to drop out without this opportunity. Public universities, regional public schools, and many small colleges are doing this great work, they are serving much larger and more diverse communities and as a society, we need to appreciate and value this. We all can show this appreciation by supporting them financially, by giving money where it's needed most and can have a wider effect. Let's redefine what makes a good college.
Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic.
©Vinay Thakur, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com
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